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The Altar Steps by Compton MacKenzie

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Esther Ogilvie the other sister was twenty-five. She told Mark this
when he imitated the villagers by addressing her as Miss Essie and she
ordered him to call her Esther. He might have supposed from this that
she intended to confer upon him a measure of friendliness, even of
sisterly affection; but on the contrary she either ignored him
altogether or gave him the impression that she considered his frequent
visits to Meade Cantorum a nuisance. Mark was sorry that she felt like
that toward him, because she seemed unhappy, and in his desire for
everybody to be happy he would have liked to proclaim how suddenly and
unexpectedly happiness may come. As a sister of the Vicar of the parish,
she went to church regularly, but Mark did not think that she was there
except in body. He once looked across at her open prayer book during the
_Magnificat_, and noticed that she was reading the Tables of Kindred and
Affinity. Now, Mark knew from personal experience that when one is
reduced to reading the Tables of Kindred and Affinity it argues a mind
untouched by the reality of worship. In his own case, when he sat beside
his uncle and aunt in the dreary Slowbridge church of their choice, it
had been nothing more than a sign of his own inward dreariness to read
the Tables of Kindred and Affinity or speculate upon the Paschal full
moons from the year 2200 to the year 2299 inclusive. But St. Margaret's,
Meade Cantorum, was a different church from St. Jude's, Slowbridge, and
for Esther Ogilvie to ignore the joyfulness of worshipping there in
order to ponder idly the complexities of Golden Numbers and Dominical
Letters could not be ascribed to inward dreariness. Besides, she wasn't
dreary. Once Mark saw her coming down a woodland glade and almost turned
aside to avoid meeting her, because she looked so fay with her wild blue
eyes and her windblown hair, the colour of last year's bracken after
rain. She seemed at once the pursued and the pursuer, and Mark felt that
whichever she was he would be in the way.

"Taking a quick walk by myself," she called out to him as they passed.

No, she was certainly not dreary. But what was she?

Mark abandoned the problem of Esther in the pleasure of meeting the
Reverend Oliver Dorward, who arrived one afternoon at the Vicarage with
a large turbot for Mrs. Ogilvie, and six Flemish candlesticks for the
Vicar, announcing that he wanted to stay a week before being inducted to
the living of Green Lanes in the County of Southampton, to which he had
recently been presented by Lord Chatsea. Mark liked him from the first
moment he saw him pacing the Vicarage garden in a soutane, buckled
shoes, and beaver hat, and he could not understand why Mr. Ogilvie, who
had often laughed about Dorward's eccentricity, should now that he had
an opportunity of enjoying it once more be so cross about his friend's
arrival and so ready to hand him over to Mark to be entertained.

"Just like Ogilvie," said Dorward confidentially, when he and Mark went
for a walk on the afternoon of his arrival. "He wants spiking up. They
get very slack and selfish, these country clergy. Time he gave up Meade
Cantorum. He's been here nearly ten years. Too long, nine years too
long. Hasn't been to his duties since Easter. Scandalous, you know. I
asked him, as soon as I'd explained to the cook about the turbot, when
he went last, and he was bored. Nice old pussy cat, the mother. Hullo,
is that the _Angelus_? Damn, I knelt on a thistle."

"It isn't the _Angelus_," said Mark quietly. "It's the bell on that
cow."

But Mr. Dorward had finished his devotion before he answered.

"I was half way through before you told me. You should have spoken
sooner."

"Well, I spoke as soon as I could."

"Very cunning of Satan," said Dorward meditatively. "Induced a cow to
simulate the _Angelus_, and planted a thistle just where I was bound to
kneel. Cunning. Cunning. Very cunning. I must go back now and confess to
Ogilvie. Good example. Wait a minute, I'll confess to-morrow before
Morning Prayer. Very good for Ogilvie's congregation. They're stuffy,
very stuffy. It'll shake them. It'll shake Ogilvie too. Are you staying
here to-night?"

"No, I shall bicycle back to Slowbridge and bicycle over to Mass
to-morrow."

"Ridiculous. Stay the night. Didn't Ogilvie invite you?"

Mark shook his head.

"Scandalous lack of hospitality. They're all alike these country clergy.
I'm tired of this walk. Let's go back and look after the turbot. Are you
a good cook?"

"I can boil eggs and that sort of thing," said Mark.

"What sort of things? An egg is unique. There's nothing like an egg.
Will you serve my Mass on Monday? Saying Mass for Napoleon on Monday."

"For whom?" Mark exclaimed.

"Napoleon, with a special intention for the conversion of the present
government in France. Last Monday I said a Mass for Shakespeare, with a
special intention for an improvement in contemporary verse."

Mark supposed that Mr. Dorward must be joking, and his expression must
have told as much to the priest, who murmured:

"Nothing to laugh at. Nothing to laugh at."

"No, of course not," said Mark feeling abashed. "But I'm afraid I
shouldn't be able to serve you. I've never had any practice."

"Perfectly easy. Perfectly easy. I'll give you a book when we get back."

Mark bicycled home that afternoon with a tall thin volume called _Ritual
Notes_, so tall that when it was in his pocket he could feel it digging
him in the ribs every time he was riding up the least slope. That night
in his bedroom he practised with the help of the wash-stand and its
accessories the technique of serving at Low Mass, and in his enthusiasm
he bicycled over to Meade Cantorum in time to attend both the Low Mass
at seven said by Mr. Dorward and the Low Mass at eight said by Mr.
Ogilvie. He was able to detect mistakes that were made by the village
boys who served that Sunday morning, and he vowed to himself that the
Monday Mass for the Emperor Napoleon should not be disfigured by such
inaccuracy or clumsiness. He declined the usual invitation to stay to
supper after Evening Prayer that he might have time to make perfection
more perfect in the seclusion of his own room, and when he set out about
six o'clock of a sun-drowsed morning in early August, apart from a faint
anxiety about the _Lavabo_, he felt secure of his accomplishment. It was
only when he reached the church that he remembered he had made no
arrangement about borrowing a cassock or a cotta, an omission that in
the mood of grand seriousness in which he had undertaken his
responsibility seemed nothing less than abominable. He did not like to
go to the Vicarage and worry Mr. Ogilvie who could scarcely fail to be
amused, even contemptuously amused at such an ineffective beginning.
Besides, ever since Mr. Dorward's arrival the Vicar had been slightly
irritable.

While Mark was wondering what was the best thing to do, Miss Hatchett, a
pious old maid who spent her nights in patience and sleep, her days in
worship and weeding, came hurrying down the churchyard path.

"I am not late, am I?" she exclaimed. "I never heard the bell. I was so
engrossed in pulling out one of those dreadful sow-thistles that when my
maid came running out and said 'Oh, Miss Hatchett, it's gone the five
to, you'll be late,' I just ran, and now I've brought my trowel and left
my prayer book on the path. . . ."

"I'm just going to ring the bell now," said Mark, in whom the horror of
another omission had been rapidly succeeded by an almost unnatural
composure.

"Oh, what a relief," Miss Hatchett sighed. "Are you sure I shall have
time to get my breath, for I know Mr. Ogilvie would dislike to hear me
panting in church?"

"Mr. Ogilvie isn't saying Mass this morning."

"Not saying Mass?" repeated the old maid in such a dejected tone of
voice that, when a small cloud passed over the face of the sun, it
seemed as if the natural scene desired to accord with the chill cast
upon her spirit by Mark's announcement.

"Mr. Dorward is saying Mass," he told her, and poor Miss Hatchett must
pretend with a forced smile that her blank look had been caused by the
prospect of being deprived of Mass when really. . . .

But Mark was not paying any more attention to Miss Hatchett. He was
standing under the bell, gazing up at the long rope and wondering what
manner of sound he should evoke. He took a breath and pulled; the rope
quivered with such an effect of life that he recoiled from the new force
he had conjured into being, afraid of his handiwork, timid of the
clamour that would resound. No louder noise ensued than might have been
given forth by a can kicked into the gutter. Mark pulled again more
strongly, and the bell began to chime, irregularly at first with
alternations of sonorous and feeble note; at last, however, when the
rhythm was established with such command and such insistence that the
ringer, looking over his shoulder to the south door, half expected to
see a stream of perturbed Christians hurrying to obey its summons. But
there was only poor Miss Hatchett sitting in the porch and fanning
herself with a handkerchief.

Mark went on ringing. . . .

Clang--clang--clang! All the holy Virgins were waving their palms.
Clang--clang--clang! All the blessed Doctors and Confessors were
twanging their harps to the clanging. Clang--clang--clang! All the holy
Saints and Martyrs were tossing their haloes in the air as schoolboys
toss their caps. Clang--clang--clang! Angels, Archangels, and
Principalities with faces that shone like brass and with forms that
quivered like flames thronged the noise. Clang--clang--clang! Virtues,
Powers, and Dominations bade the morning stars sing to the ringing.
Clang--clang--clang! The ringing reached up to the green-winged Thrones
who sustain the seat of the Most High. Clang--clang--clang! The azure
Cherubs heard the bells within their contemplation: the scarlet Seraphs
felt them within their love. Clang--clang--clang! The lidless Eye of God
looked down, and Miss Hatchett supposing it to be the sun crossed over
to the other side of the porch.

Clang--clang--clang--clang--clang--clang--clang--clang. . . .

"Hasn't Dorward come in yet? It's five past eight already. Go on
ringing for a little while. I'll go and see how long he'll be."

Mark in the absorption of ringing the bell had not noticed the Vicar's
approach, and he was gone again before he remembered that he wanted to
borrow a cassock and a cotta. Had he been rude? Would Mr. Ogilvie think
it cheek to ring the bell without asking his permission first? But
before these unanswered questions had had time to spoil the rhythm of
his ringing, the Vicar came back with Mr. Dorward, and the congregation,
that is to say Miss Hatchett and Miss Ogilvie, was already kneeling in
its place.

Mark in a cassock that was much too long for him and in a cotta that was
in the same ratio as much too short preceded Mr. Dorward from the
sacristy to the altar. A fear seized him that in spite of all his
practice he was kneeling on the wrong side of the priest; he forgot the
first responses; he was sure the Sanctus-bell was too far away; he
wished that Mr. Dorward would not mutter quite so inaudibly. Gradually,
however, the meetness of the gestures prescribed for him by the ancient
ritual cured his self-consciousness and included him in its pattern, so
that now for the first time he was aware of the significance of the
preface to the Sanctus: _It is very meet, right, and our bounden duty,
that we should at all times, and in all places, give thanks unto thee, O
Lord, Holy Father, Almighty Everlasting God._

Twenty minutes ago when he was ringing the church bell Mark had
experienced the rapture of creative noise, the sense of individual
triumph over time and space; and the sound of his ringing came back to
him from the vaulted roof of the church with such exultation as the
missal thrush may know when he sits high above the fretted boughs of an
oak and his music plunges forth upon the January wind. Now when Mark was
ringing the Sanctus-bell, it was with a sense of his place in the scheme
of worship. If one listens to the twitter of a single linnet in open
country or to the buzz of a solitary fly upon a window pane, how
incredible it is that myriads of them twittering and buzzing together
should be the song of April, the murmur of June. And this Sanctus-bell
that tinkled so inadequately, almost so frivolously when sounded by a
server in Meade Cantorum church, was yet part of an unimaginable volume
of worship that swelled in unison with Angels and Archangels lauding and
magnifying the Holy Name. The importance of ceremony was as deeply
impressed upon Mark that morning as if he had been formally initiated to
great mysteries. His coming confirmation, which had been postponed from
July 2nd to September 8th seemed much more momentous now than it seemed
yesterday. It was no longer a step to Communion, but was apprehended as
a Sacrament itself, and though Mr. Ogilvie was inclined to regret the
ritualistic development of his catechumen, Mark derived much strength
from what was really the awakening in him of a sense of form, which more
than anything makes emotion durable. Perhaps Ogilvie may have been a
little jealous of Dorward's influence; he also was really alarmed at the
prospect, as he said, of so much fire being wasted upon poker-work. In
the end what between Dorward's encouragement of Mark's ritualistic
tendencies and the "spiking up" process to which he was himself being
subjected, Ogilvie was glad when a fortnight later Dorward took himself
off to his own living, and he expressed a hope that Mark would perceive
Dorward in his true proportions as a dear good fellow, perfectly
sincere, but just a little, well, not exactly mad, but so eccentric as
sometimes to do more harm than good to the Movement. Mark was shrewd
enough to notice that however much he grumbled about his friend's visit
Mr. Ogilvie was sufficiently influenced by that visit to put into
practice much of the advice to which he had taken exception. The
influence of Dorward upon Mark did not stop with his begetting in him an
appreciation of the value of form in worship. When Mark told Mr. Ogilvie
that he intended to become a priest, Mr. Ogilvie was impressed by the
manifestation of the Divine Grace, but he did not offer many practical
suggestions for Mark's immediate future. Dorward on the contrary
attached as much importance to the manner in which he was to become a
priest.

"Oxford," Mr. Dorward pronounced. "And then Glastonbury."

"Glastonbury?"

"Glastonbury Theological College."

Now to Mark Oxford was a legendary place to which before he met Mr.
Dorward he would never have aspired. Oxford at Haverton House was merely
an abstraction to which a certain number of people offered an illogical
allegiance in order to create an excuse for argument and strife.
Sometimes Mark had gazed at Eton and wondered vaguely about existence
there; sometimes he had gazed at the towers of Windsor and wondered what
the Queen ate for breakfast. Oxford was far more remote than either of
these, and yet when Mr. Dorward said that he must go there his heart
leapt as if to some recognized ambition long ago buried and now abruptly
resuscitated.

"I've always been Oxford," he admitted.

When Mr. Dorward had gone, Mark asked Mr. Ogilvie what he thought about
Oxford.

"If you can afford to go there, my dear boy, of course you ought to go."

"Well, I'm pretty sure I can't afford to. I don't think I've got any
money at all. My mother left some money, but my uncle says that that
will come in useful when I'm articled to this solicitor, Mr. Hitchcock.
Oh, but if I become a priest I can't become a solicitor, and perhaps I
could have that money. I don't know how much it is . . . I think five
hundred pounds. Would that be enough?"

"With care and economy," said Mr. Ogilvie. "And you might win a
scholarship."

"But I'm leaving school at the end of this year."

Mr. Ogilvie thought that it would be wiser not to say anything to his
uncle until after Mark had been confirmed. He advised him to work hard
meanwhile and to keep in mind the possibility of having to win a
scholarship.

The confirmation was held on the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed
Virgin. Mark made his first Confession on the vigil, his first Communion
on the following Sunday.




CHAPTER XII

THE POMEROY AFFAIR


Mark was so much elated to find himself a fully equipped member of the
Church Militant that he looked about him again to find somebody whom he
could make as happy as himself. He even considered the possibility of
converting his uncle, and spent the Sunday evening before term began in
framing inexpugnable arguments to be preceded by unanswerable questions;
but always when he was on the point of speaking he was deterred by the
lifelessness of his uncle. No eloquence could irrigate his arid creed
and make that desert blossom now. And yet, Mark thought, he ought to
remember that in the eyes of the world he owed his uncle everything.
What did he owe him in the sight of God? Gratitude? Gratitude for what?
Gratitude for spending a certain amount of money on him. Once more Mark
opened his mouth to repay his debt by offering Uncle Henry Eternal Life.
But Uncle Henry fancied himself already in possession of Eternal Life.
He definitely labelled himself Evangelical. And again Mark prepared one
of his unanswerable questions.

"Mark," said Mr. Lidderdale. "If you can't keep from yawning you'd
better get off to bed. Don't forget school begins to-morrow, and you
must make the most of your last term."

Mark abandoned for ever the task of converting Uncle Henry, and pondered
his chance of doing something with Aunt Helen. There instead of
exsiccation he was confronted by a dreadful humidity, an infertile ooze
that seemed almost less susceptible to cultivation than the other.

"And I really don't owe _her_ anything," he thought. "Besides, it isn't
that I want to save people from damnation. I want people to be happy.
And it isn't quite that even. I want them to understand how happy I am.
I want people to feel fond of their pillows when they turn over to go to
sleep, because next morning is going to be what? Well, sort of
exciting."

Mark suddenly imagined how splendid it would be to give some of his
happiness to Esther Ogilvie; but a moment later he decided that it would
be rather cheek, and he abandoned the idea of converting Esther Ogilvie.
He fell back on wishing again that Mr. Spaull had not died; in him he
really would have had an ideal subject.

In the end Mark fixed upon a boy of his own age, one of the many sons of
a Papuan missionary called Pomeroy who was glad to have found in Mr.
Lidderdale a cheap and evangelical schoolmaster. Cyril Pomeroy was a
blushful, girlish youth, clever at the routine of school work, but in
other ways so much undeveloped as to give an impression of stupidity.
The notion of pointing out to him the beauty and utility of the Catholic
religion would probably never have occurred to Mark if the boy himself
had not approached him with a direct complaint of the dreariness of home
life. Mark had never had any intimate friends at Haverton House; there
was something in its atmosphere that was hostile to intimacy. Cyril
Pomeroy appealed to that idea of romantic protection which is the common
appendage of adolescence, and is the cause of half the extravagant
affection at which maturity is wont to laugh. In the company of Cyril,
Mark felt ineffably old than which upon the threshold of sixteen there
is no sensation more grateful; and while the intercourse flattered his
own sense of superiority he did feel that he had much to offer his
friend. Mark regarded Cyril's case as curable if the right treatment
were followed, and every evening after school during the veiled summer
of a fine October he paced the Slowbridge streets with his willing
proselyte, debating the gravest issues of religious practice, the
subtlest varieties of theological opinion. He also lent Cyril suitable
books, and finally he demanded from him as a double tribute to piety and
friendship that he should prove his metal by going to Confession.
Cyril, who was incapable of refusing whatever Mark demanded, bicycled
timorously behind him to Meade Cantorum one Saturday afternoon, where he
gulped out the table of his sins to Mr. Ogilvie, whom Mark had fetched
from the Vicarage with the urgency of one who fetches a midwife. Nor was
he at all abashed when Mr. Ogilvie was angry for not having been told
that Cyril's father would have disapproved of his son's confession. He
argued that the priest was applying social standards to religious
principles, and in the end he enjoyed the triumph of hearing Mr. Ogilvie
admit that perhaps he was right.

"I know I'm right. Come on, Cyril. You'd better get back home now. Oh,
and I say, Mr. Ogilvie, can I borrow for Cyril some of the books you
lent me?"

The priest was amused that Mark did not ask him to lend the books to his
friend, but to himself. However, when he found that the neophyte seemed
to flourish under Mark's assiduous priming, and that the fundamental
weakness of his character was likely to be strengthened by what, though
it was at present nothing more than an interest in religion, might later
on develop into a profound conviction of the truths of Christianity,
Ogilvie overlooked his scruples about deceiving parents and encouraged
the boy as much as he could.

"But I hope your manipulation of the plastic Cyril isn't going to turn
_you_ into too much of a ritualist," he said to Mark. "It's splendid of
course that you should have an opportunity so young of proving your
ability to get round people in the right way. But let it be the right
way, old man. At the beginning you were full of the happiness, the
secret of which you burnt to impart to others. That happiness was the
revelation of the Holy Spirit dwelling in you as He dwells in all
Christian souls. I am sure that the eloquent exposition I lately
overheard of the propriety of fiddle-backed chasubles and the
impropriety of Gothic ones doesn't mean that you are in any real danger
of supposing chasubles to be anything more important relatively than,
say, the uniform of a soldier compared with his valour and obedience
and selflessness. Now don't overwhelm me for a minute or two. I haven't
finished what I want to say. I wasn't speaking sarcastically when I said
that, and I wasn't criticizing you. But you are not Cyril. By God's
grace you have been kept from the temptations of the flesh. Yes, I know
the subject is distasteful to you. But you are old enough to understand
that your fastidiousness, if it isn't to be priggish, must be
safeguarded by your humility. I didn't mean to sandwich a sermon to you
between my remarks on Cyril, but your disdainful upper lip compelled
that testimony. Let us leave you and your virtues alone. Cyril is weak.
He's the weak pink type that may fall to women or drink or anything in
fact where an opportunity is given him of being influenced by a stronger
character than his own. At the moment he's being influenced by you to go
to Confession, and say his rosary, and hear Mass, and enjoy all the
other treats that our holy religion gives us. In addition to that he's
enjoying them like the proverbial stolen fruit. You were very severe
with me when I demurred at hearing his confession without authority from
his father; but I don't like stolen fruit, and I'm not sure even now if
I was right in yielding on that point. I shouldn't have yielded if I
hadn't felt that Cyril might be hurt in the future by my scruples. Now
look here, Mark, you've got to see that I don't regret my surrender. If
that youth doesn't get from religion what I hope and pray he will get
. . . but let that point alone. My scruples are my own affair. Your
convictions are your own affair. But Cyril is our joint affair. He's
your convert, but he's my penitent; and Mark, don't overdecorate your
building until you're sure the foundations are well and truly laid."

Mark was never given an opportunity of proving the excellence of his
methods by the excellence of Cyril's life, because on the morning after
this conversation, which took place one wet Sunday evening in Advent he
was sent for by his uncle, who demanded to know the meaning of This.
This was a letter from the Reverend Eustace Pomeroy.

The Limes,

38, Cranborne Road,

Slowbridge.

December 9.

Dear Mr. Lidderdale,

My son Cyril will not attend school for the rest of this term.
Yesterday evening, being confined to the house by fever, I went up
to his bedroom to verify a reference in a book I had recently lent
him to assist his divinity studies under you. When I took down the
book from the shelf I noticed several books hidden away behind, and
my curiosity being aroused I examined them, in case they should be
works of an unpleasant nature. To my horror and disgust, I found
that they were all works of an extremely Popish character, most of
them belonging to a clergyman in this neighbourhood called Ogilvie,
whose illegal practices have for several years been a scandal to
this diocese. These I am sending to the Bishop that he may see with
his own eyes the kind of propaganda that is going on. Two of the
books, inscribed Mark Lidderdale, are evidently the property of
your nephew to whom I suppose my son is indebted for this wholesale
corruption. On questioning my son I found him already so sunk in
the mire of the pernicious doctrines he has imbibed that he
actually defied his own father. I thrashed him severely in spite of
my fever, and he is now under lock and key in his bedroom where he
will remain until he sails with me to Sydney next week whither I am
summoned to the conference of Australasian missionaries. During the
voyage I shall wrestle with the demon that has entered into my son
and endeavour to persuade him that Jesus only is necessary for
salvation. And when I have done so, I shall leave him in Australia
to earn his own living remote from the scene of his corruption. In
the circumstances I assume that you will deduct a proportion of his
school fees for this term. I know that you will be as much
horrified and disgusted as I was by your nephew's conduct, and I
trust that you will be able to wrestle with him in the Lord and
prove to him that Jesus only is necessary to salvation.

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